FIFTY-TWO

Present Day

Dubnik Mine, Slovakia

    Since we had to wait for more nitrogen to bleed out of our bodies before we dove again, we spent the next two hours packing our surface gear. Val and I helped George and Sue tear down the tents while the twins went into the mine, checked the diving gear, and replaced the scrubbers and tanks on the rebreathers.

    When all we had left on the surface was the packed green van, the intruder gear, and the ashes from the fire, all eight of us went into the mine. Both Archie and Madame Flora insisted on being present when we pulled the gold out of the water, so we helped them negotiate the low spots in the tunnel, and we made our way to the top of the Viliam gallery.

    “Are you sure it’s okay to leave the outside unguarded?” I asked George.

    He shrugged. “We don’t really have a choice. We’ve only got five more hours, and I need Sue’s help.”

    “Mr. Morgan and Flora are safer down here with us,” Sue said.

    I nodded. We were jammed for time.

    George and Sue helped the four of us suit up. The twins descended, and Val and I stayed on the surface.

    “Pull her up, George,” Rose said over the intercom after a few minutes.

    George turned the lever on the winch. Val and I waited for the first barrel to rise, and as soon as the top showed, we swam over and helped George maneuver it to the ledge.

    Madame Flora walked over to the barrel and used her hands to wipe away the silt. She bowed her head and stood with both hands on its rim. Archie came and put his arm around her shoulders, and when she looked up and grinned, the six of us let out a cheer.

    George lowered the cable back down, and in the next thirty minutes, we raised eight of the barrels.

    “Okay, it’s time to switch,” Marie said. “We’re heading up.”

    The reason we were switching was because our residual nitrogen level had climbed with all the diving. If Rose and Marie stayed down any longer, they’d be stuck in decompression for more time than we had left. As it was, they needed to hang out at fifteen feet for a half hour.

    When their time was almost up, Val and I descended to the bottom of the shaft.

    “Good luck,” Rose called as we passed them.

    We saw the remaining four barrels when we reached the bottom. Val tilted the first one, and I slid the cable loops underneath it. “Take her away, George,” I called.

    We watched the cable pull taut. The barrel slowly rose above us. A few minutes later the cable came back. We sent the other three barrels one by one to the surface.

    I looked at Val when the last barrel went up. “That’s it, then.”

    She nodded. “Should we retrieve our lights from the alcoves?”

    I tapped my dive computer. “We barely have enough time for decompression.” Our time was tighter than the twins’ because we had retrieved Ned’s bones from one hundred feet.

    “Leave the lights,” George said. “Come on up so we can get these barrels out of here.”

    So we made our final ascent through Viliam gallery. As we floated for our twenty minutes at fifteen feet, I thought about the mess we had made to the alcove, and I hoped it wouldn’t come back to haunt Soul Identity.

    My dive computer showed a minute left before we could return to the surface.

    Then George’s voice came over the intercom. “I’m sorry,” he said. “We have a private permit to use this mine. You’ll have to come back after midnight.”

    Who was he talking to? I grabbed Val’s arm and switched off my wrist-mounted video camera.

    Silence for a moment, and then I heard George again. “Hey buddy, you don’t have to point that thing at me. Let me get-”

    I heard what sounded like a car backfiring, followed by a woman’s scream. Then a man’s sharp voice, laced with a German accent. “You will do exactly what I say, or I will shoot the old man next.”

    “You son of a bitch-you shot my husband!” Sue yelled.

    “And I will most assuredly shoot you as well if you do not follow my instructions.”

    Silence over the intercom. Val grabbed my hand. I looked at her wide eyes behind her mask and raised my finger toward my lips. She nodded.

    “What do you want?” I heard Madame Flora ask.

    “We want our gold back. All seventy-two bars.”

    “That gold is mine!” Madame Flora shouted.

    “I am sorry you feel that way.” Another sharp crack. Val gripped my arm.

    “That was just a warning, old lady. The next bullet will surely land between your eyes.”

    Silence for what seemed forever. Then I heard Archie say in a wavering voice. “The gold is in the barrels. You may take it.”

    “Danke.” And I heard in the background the faint sounds of orders. I imagined men hauling the barrels up the mine’s tunnel.

    I strained to hear anything over the intercom, but I couldn’t make much out. Some labored breathing, some murmurs from what sounded like the twins, and every now and then a barked German command.

    After what must have been thirty minutes, Sue’s low voice came over the intercom. “Scott? Val? I don’t know if you can hear me,” she said. “But don’t answer-just listen.

    “The group is wearing uniforms with swastikas on their armbands. You heard the leader-he’s the one who shot George.” Her voice sounded choked up as she said that, and then she was silent for a minute.

    “I think George is still alive, but I don’t dare approach him. I whispered for him to lie still so they don’t shoot him again.

    “Six soldiers are hauling the barrels out of here. Every now and then only the leader’s left guarding us. Next time that happens, I’m going to make my move. You guys need to wait this one out. Stir up the water so you can stay out of sight.”

    The line went silent. I stared at Val, and knew she felt as helpless and as powerless and as tension-filled as I was.

    Sue wanted us to hide under a cloud of silt. A great idea, except that Val wouldn’t be able to sing me through this one.

    I took a deep breath and steeled myself for the panic attack that I knew would come. Then I reached out with both arms and scrubbed my hands against the wall.

    The silt cloud blossomed and enveloped us. I gritted my teeth as the panic monster broke free within me. I clenched my fists and fought to control my breathing.

    Val grabbed my arm and led me in a descent to just under the silt cloud. I felt the panic attack subside, and I squeezed her hand.

    We waited. I glanced at my dive computer: it had been fifty minutes since George was shot.

    Suddenly I heard Sue’s yell, followed by a barrage of shots. Everybody seemed to be screaming. Then it was silent. Deathly silent.

    I grabbed Val’s hand and pointed upwards. She shook her head and signaled me to stop. I clenched my fists and tried to control my frustration.

    Then I heard Sue call, “Watch out below!” I looked up and saw the winch falling toward us out of the silt cloud. I shoved Val at the wall and kicked hard to get away, and the winch passed between us on its way to the bottom.

    The winch’s cable dragged behind it. And then about thirty feet later, the cable was wrapped around the torso of a man in a green uniform, his eyes bulging and his mouth open as he passed us.

    The man jerked to a stop five feet or so below where we floated. The winch must have reached the gallery’s bottom. The end of the cable fell past him as the he twisted upward to face us. I pointed my light at him. The blood from cuts on his face made a red cloud form around his head, and it seemed his legs floated at unnatural angles. Sue had really messed him up.

    The man reached into his boot and pulled out a small pistol. He pointed it at me, but at that moment the weight of the free end of the cable must have been enough to counteract his buoyancy, because he was jerked downward and out of the range of my wrist light.

    Bullets wouldn’t travel more than a few feet in the water, but just to be safe, I switched off my light and motioned Val to do the same.

    Instead of responding, Val floated limp in the water.

    I swam over to her. Her eyes were scrunched together, and her chest was heaving. I didn’t think the winch had hit her. I reached out and spun her around. Her rebreather’s status light flashed red-something must have malfunctioned when I pushed her; she wasn’t getting any oxygen.

    I spun her back around and cranked open her bail-out bottle and opened her regulator bypass. She kept breathing, and after a minute she opened her eyes and flailed her arms. She was alive.

    At fifteen feet the five-pound tank would last fifteen minutes. Val could suck for another fifteen from my bail-out, but then we’d have to surface.

    Sue came back on the intercom. “Scott? Val? I neutralized the leader and grabbed his pistol. The other six are heading back down this way. I’ve set up an ambush, but I only have four bullets. There’s no time, or I’d ask to you to come up and help me. Sit tight, okay?”

    So we waited. I wanted to get the small pistol from the leader floating below us, but I wasn’t sure if he was done drowning.

    We heard four shots over the intercom. Then we heard nothing. Did Sue get them all? I doubted it, because she would have said something.

    “Hands in the air, or the old man dies!” Another German-accented voice yelled. Then silence. I gritted my teeth.

    “Where is our Rottenführer?” the man asked.

    “At the bottom,” I heard Sue reply.

    “That is unfortunate for you,” he said. “Our orders were to take as many prisoners as we could, but you have eliminated five of our team.”

    “Only two more to go.” Sue’s voice sounded hard and flat.

    I heard a short chuckle. “I don’t think so.” Another shot, and I heard the twins scream. Val’s body was shaking violently.

    “Silence!” the man roared. After the girls’ screams stopped, he said, “The belly shot means you will have several days to remember how brave you were, until you die next to your husband.”

    “Damn you,” Sue gasped.

    “You have damned yourself,” he replied. After a minute of silence, he continued. “The rest of you are to come with me.”

    “Where are you taking us?” I heard Archie ask.

    “Back to the surface, to the Untersturmführer,” he said. “Something tells me he will remember you older ones.” He laughed. “And the two frauleinen will be a nice treat.”

    “Take us, but leave the girls,” Madame Flora said.

    “Ah, you prefer they die down here?” The voice sounded pleasant, as if he was about to tell the punch line of a joke.

    “No!” Rose said. “We’ll come.”

    “Perfect,” the man said. “My partner will go first, then the four of you, and I will come behind. If anybody tries anything heroic, everybody dies. Is this understood?”

    “We understand,” Marie said.

    And then we heard nothing more.